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| 1923 Jordan Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post, June 23, 1923 (Bill Roberts collection) |
Somewhere West of Laramie is among the most famous of American automobile ads. It wants to excite the reader, rather than to appeal to his intellect. There is no list of the Jordan Playboy's mechanical features. Instead, the ad claims that it's sassy, it's brawny, it's action, it's a cross between the wild and the tame, yet the Playboy is graceful, with hints of laughter and old loves. Who wouldn't want to get behind the wheel of such a car!
The following comments from Edward S. (Ned) Jordan were found in Tim Howley's column in Old Cars newspaper, January 1973:
When I wrote that copy, I was a week late for the Post deadline. On the Overland Limited, roaring over the Wyoming Highlands, bound for San Francisco, we passed some station in Wyoming, too late to catch the sign. Just then the train slowed down. Outside was a horse acting as if he were having his first look at the Union Pacific Iron Horse. Ahh, the girl on that rarin' cayuse! Her hair was flying in the wind, and at every leap that broncho looked as if he might soar off into the wild blue yonder.
"Where are we now" I inquired of my companion, just to make conversation.
"Oh, somewhere west of Laramie," he yawned.
I took an envelope from my pocket, wrote down the phrase, and rambled on. . . .